Piggly Wiggly Baby
It's a Thursday evening when the bottom falls out. He's not even sure why if he's being honest. He just feel something inside of him whispering that there is going to be a problem soon because there hasn't been one in a really long time. Like…since their wedding back in August and hell it's June now. Damn it's June…its June and they've been married since August and it has been great the whole time.
Well great but not perfect. There was that argument they had when they bought a house together in October. The one where Kurt told his husband there was no way in hell they were displaying Sebastian's grandmother's Piggly Wiggly China.
"I thought you Smythe's were rich." Kurt had said as he closed the box and moved it to the side so he could get to their coffee pot. It was the one thing that would keep Kurt going through the exhausting journey of moving with a brand new husband, "Great Grandma Smythe had money coming out of her ass and she signed up to get a free fake China cup every time she bought fifty bucks worth of groceries."
"As wild as it sounds, I didn't get to help pick it for her." Sebastian had argued, "I didn't exactly exist back then sweetheart. And there's no way I can tell her no. She's the cutest old lady I've ever met and she loves you. She loves you enough to give you the china set she worked so hard on. Do you realize how heartbroken she would be if we didn't keep it? I'd never be able to look her in the eyes again. She didn't even like Piggly Wiggly but she sure went every Saturday afternoon so she could get those damn cups and sometimes they gave her a fucking plate. I wish I was that motivated to go out and earn something even if it's this ugly set of plates she could have collected quicker if she just put the fifty bucks down on the set in the back room."
Kurt's left eye had twitched at the time but he roughly stacked the plates in the far end of a cabinet and put the tea cups and saucers in the cabinet he couldn't reach above their fridge. The only way anyone would be getting to those would be to scale the counters and that usually fell on him when Sebastian was conveniently still at work but had fucking dinner guests coming in twenty minutes.
Kurt had dropped it as soon as Sebastian asked if he wanted to fuck. Yeah. He had wanted to fuck. They bought a new bed for the move and hell they needed to break it in.
They had another argument in January about how Sebastian worked too much. About how Sebastian worked too much because he was a lawyer and there was never a break in divorce court and all that bullshit and then he brought it home with him and when he finally sat down to the dinner Kurt had scraped together with the four things in their pantry he'd eat it while making notes in his legal pad.
Conveniently Kurt had accidentally spilled jarred marinara sauce on the notebook while trying to clean up the table without Sebastian's help. Kurt had a long day too at Vogue but as much as he would have liked to bring his designs home and work on them he left them on his desk so he could focus on his brand new marriage. Because that's how marriage worked right? You give you get. Well right now Kurt was giving his all and what he was receiving was a casual fuck while Sebastian talked about his day at work and about how annoying divorced couples could be.
Wasn't divorce court for bitter divorced middle aged people, who wouldn't get their own marriage involved? Because at this point Kurt was thinking about serving his own papers to Sebastian on one of those damn china plates hidden in the back of the cabinet. A Kardashian divorce, that's what that would be. Married for five months and that would be it for them. There would be no custody battle because that was another thing they argued about. How Kurt didn't want kids and Sebastian always asked why the hell not. Because Kurt didn't have siblings and he didn't have a dog growing up and so he never felt affection for anything younger than him, that's why.
And then the funny thing was that despite how kinky Sebastian claimed to be when they were teenagers, and then proved while they were dating years later, he dropped it after a month in divorce court. It was all missionary all the time. They were young, they were flexible, they could do anything they wanted and here they were, missionary style, Kurt trying his damn fucking best to enjoy it even though Sebastian kept bringing up a woman's name in their bedroom.
Sebastian hadn't even noticed the way Kurt's eyes narrowed and the tension in his body he just kept going on about Jennifer this and Jennifer that. He hadn't at all anticipated the smack of Kurt's hand across his cheek. It hadn't been that hard, Kurt hadn't wanted to hurt him. He just wanted to grab Sebastian's attention. And hell he had. Kurt had kept his grip on Sebastian's jaw and yanked him impossibly closer to his own face and he had whispered very quietly, "If you so much as mention work of any sort in this bedroom again you will be dead and I will be in jail. No passing go, no collecting two hundred dollars, no mercy. Is that clear Smythe?"
Sebastian had swallowed more than a lump in his throat that night.
But this. This was more than if they were going to talk about work at home or the Piggly Wiggly china. This was more than should they or should they not get a dog and settling on a blue beta fish that Kurt called their guard fish. This was more than if they really were going to take the leap and adopt a kid. This was actually something that never should have made its way into the simple disagreement it starts out as. It starts out simple, Sebastian bumps into Kurt while he's chopping vegetables for dinner and Kurt cuts his finger. It isn't really deep enough for stitches or anything but it still hurts like a bitch and he's bleeding quite a bit.
Sebastian knows he's messed up the minute the knife Kurt is using clatters into the sink beside him and he whips around, hell in his blue eyes and his bloody finger right in Sebastian's face.
"Fix it." He whispers and that's all he says.
Sebastian looks at him carefully for a long time. Sharp green eyes watching icy blue ones. All they do is stare, breathe, and bleed for a couple of minutes. Sebastian trying to figure out if K will somehow have access to that butcher knife in the sink if he angles them the wrong way. He decides to rinse the knife first and toss it aside for deeper cleaning, before he grabs his husband.
Apparently choosing the knife first offends Kurt because when he angles Kurt between himself and the sink in a way where he can and will win any fight Kurt tries to put up, those blue eyes are looking up at him like he's grown a second head. Sebastian ignores his husband because he knew walking into this that Kurt was a moody brat and that's how it always would be. Instead he gently runs it under the warm water until Kurt's grimaces turn into a groan and he tries his best to yank his arm out of Sebastian's grip.
"Let me see it." Sebastian hisses. He's trying to be gentle but sometimes the only way to deal with Kurt when he's in these kinds of moods is to tell him exactly what's going to happen without room to argue. Kurt is hell bent on arguing today though, "Kurt let me fucking look at it before I go ahead and cut the rest of it off so we don't have to deal with it anymore." Kurt is still struggling in his arms and Sebastian really isn't sure what he's managed to do to his husband in the five minutes this has gone down but he's going to be the one in jail and Kurt is going to be the dead one if he doesn't relax.
Somehow Sebastian wrestles him over to the cabinet they keep their alcohol in. Both rubbing and drinking and Sebastian is sure they're going to need both by the end of this ordeal. He pours half a bottle of peroxide on the floor because he cannot for the life of him get Kurt to move back to the sink. When did K get so strong willed and determined? Sebastian is thankful they haven't been able to switch the floors from the ugly tile to hardwood yet because that would be another night on the couch and Sebastian is positive he's earned himself at least four as of this moment.
"How does it feel?" Sebastian asks when he's wrapped it up in blue gauze and medical tape.
"Like you took one of those Piggly Wiggly plates and dug it into my finger." Kurt mutters and oh yeah. Oh yeah that's something else they don't talk about. About Great Grandma Smythe passing away back at the end of February. Sebastian was obviously torn up over the news, Kurt held him for three days, throughout the funeral, and for three days after that. And then Sebastian stopped moping around and he made them breakfast and they watched cartoons all day and he's been okay since then. Kurt knew his husband wasn't fine, they never talked about it. He just decided one day he was over it and K knew from experience that just deciding you were over someone's death was a cover up to how you really felt inside. But he couldn't just make Sebastian talk about it, he had to wait it out.
And this was definitely not waiting it out. This was stepping in it. This was stepping in it and then giving it a good grind with the toes because stepping on it wasn't good enough.
"Get out." Sebastian deadpans, "Pack a bag and get out."
Kurt looks at him with wide eyes and holds his bandaged hand up, "Sebastian I'm really sorry I shouldn't have said that my finger just really hurts and I shouldn't have taken that out on you."
"You're right you shouldn't." Sebastian consents as he walks towards their bedroom, Kurt on his heels, "So I need you to leave before this escalates and we end up in the middle of a divorce for something as stupid as you finger getting cut open." He grabs Kurt's duffel bag and starts throwing socks and underwear and t-shirts in it.
"Sebastian come on." Kurt begs, "This is ridiculous. We can talk about this with that brand new bottle of vodka and a rerun of Cops." That was their usual position for resolving arguments.
"Kurt I need a few days by myself to remember what it's like to be sane." Sebastian says and that really hurts because Sebastian knows as well as Kurt does that they drive each other equal parts insane. It's not as one sided as they make it sound on the rough days.
Kurt relents. This isn't something that's going to be resolved by spending some time in the guest bedroom they really do need to walk away for a few days before they can talk about it. It's probably overdue and Kurt hopes their marriage only gets stronger from the break he's being put through. The last thing he hopes Sebastian remembers is to feed their fish Romeo Tango and then he's being pushed out the front door with his duffel bag, phone, keys, and no kiss. Guess he doesn't deserve one but you aren't supposed to go to bed angry so Kurt hopes that they make it through this week without miraculously dying because Karma hates them.
Kurt doesn't even call Rachel and Santana, he hasn't been back in the loft since Sebastian asked him to move in with him over a year ago now. He knows they're still there though because they still post pictures about it on Facebook. Thankfully Rachel is home when he knocks on the door forty five minutes later and she doesn't even question him when he drops his bag in the space he used to occupy when he lived there. The bed is still there. They probably let family stay there during holidays.
"What happened to your finger?" Rachel asks, flopping onto the bed while Kurt starts to unpack what little he has. She must know it's the quickest way to get answers out of him regarding his marital crisis. Despite how annoying she is, she knows how to play the game well enough to drag answers out of Kurt as soon as Santana walks through the door with coconut rum and boxes of Chinese takeout.
"Spill Porcelain." Santana barks, cracking the top on the rum and passing it to Kurt first. He takes a drink from the bottle, grimacing before passing it to Rachel on his right, "Let's hear what the trouble in paradise is."
Kurt sighs, stirring noodles in his box, "Okay so I was cooking dinner tonight." He starts, "And I had this huge knife in my hands cutting up vegetables and Sebastian bumps into me and nearly takes my whole finger off and he washes the knife before he helps me fix my profusely bleeding finger." He says.
Santana has a mouthful of noodles when she turns and looks at him with confused brown eyes. Her eyebrows are all cocked and she quickly stuffs the rest of them in her mouth while Rachel cautiously asks, "Is that it?" Rachel looks just as confused as Santana does and K didn't expect to stun them both into silence.
"Well." Kurt continues, "Then he asked how it felt once he had it cleaned out and wrapped it up and all that and I said it felt like he'd dug a piece of that Piggly Wiggly china his great grandmother gave to him when we got married. Which she died in February and he's been pretty upset about it since then so I shouldn't have said it but it came out before I could stop it and I tried to apologize but he said he needed a few days alone to remember how it felt to be sane again."
Santana bursts into laughter the minute it's out and Rachel drops her head in her hand and shakes her head, "Kurt, really?" Santana gasps in between breaths, "You let him kick you out for saying something about his great grandmother who has been dead for four months now? I thought you were the sensitive one has marriage turned him into a baby?"
Rachel glares at Santana, "It's obvious to me that Sebastian had a strong attachment for his great grandmother. Close enough to not be able to talk about it despite eleven months of marriage. Of course what you said was out of line and I can understand you were angry about your finger but I do agree that a few days would benefit the two of you. I say give it the weekend and then try again on Monday. He can't kick you out forever, he'll miss coming home to dinner every night and seeing your face every morning and then he'll ask to talk about it. At which point you two need to sit down and talk about his grandmother's death and boundaries that don't need to be crossed, and perhaps about settling arguments in a way healthier than getting in each other's faces and cussing at each other."
It takes fifty five minutes and four boxes of noodles between the three of them for Kurt to be drunk enough to cry, "I never thought marriage would be this hard. This is the stupidest argument we've ever had and I'm the one that gets put out. He's probably having the time of his life right now hanging out with all his friends, socially drinking, watching…" he looks at Santana, "What sport season is it?"
"Basketball." Santana answers, opening her fourth fortune cookie.
"Watching basketball with his friends and drinking beer. Beer, Rachel he's probably drinking beer because I never buy it because it smells like horse piss. I've been suppressing his creativity since we got married, what the hell is wrong with me?" Rachel didn't realize just how much coconut rum Kurt had between the three of them and the bottle is disturbingly low for it only being an hour so she stands up from her spot on the couch and takes the empty containers and the rum and puts it all away.
"You sound like a brand new organo mom." Santana mumbles, reading the fortune inside her cookie, "Eat one of these and then go to bed. You're going to be so sick tomorrow." She tossed him a cookie she already opened in hopes of eating it.
He's still crying when he pulls the fortune out and reads, "All things are difficult before they are easy." Which only makes him cry harder as he eats one half and gives the other half to Santana who gladly takes it off his hands.
"That's some crazy shit." She says in between dry mouthfuls, "It's a sign about your marriage Kurt. It's going to get easier." She rubs his back and then stands up, "Time for bed, Kurt. I better not hear you cry all night because I will come into your room and strangle you in your sleep if I don't get my beauty rest." Rachel follows behind her after hugging him momentarily and then he's alone in the dark. Every part of him wants to find that bottle of rum but he already feels like shit so he makes his way to his old bedroom and brushes his teeth and curls up inside the tshirt he took from their laundry basket. It still smells like Sebastian and he hopes he can make the scent last until he's allowed to come back home.
He throws up as soon as his eyes open the next morning. He thinks he's one and done but he calls out of work anyways and stays in watching cartoons while Santana and Rachel both pull a morning shift at the diner. When he's feeling better he stops by for lunch and they treat him to a free milkshake as long as he pays for the salad he orders. It's a fair deal he accepts.
He doesn't receive any messages from Sebastian that whole day and he doesn't send anything but an I love you at 11:49 am while he's sipping at a strawberry milkshake and listening to Rachel sing her heart out on stage. Just like old times when they were broke and struggling and couldn't keep each other happy as friends to save their life. Right around the time Sebastian came in and saved them from ruining their friendship by moving Kurt into his own apartment and then proposing to him a few months later.
Sebastian doesn't answer but he opens it four hours later and that gives Kurt a little relief that he's at least seen it even if he's too pissed off to answer it. When he goes to bed that night the scent on the shirt isn't as strong as it had been the night before and so he wraps himself tighter in it and sweats the night off. It's worth it as long as he feels like he's close to his husband of almost one year. One whole year. This will be resolved in time to eat the top tier of their wedding cake together, right? They worked extra hard on preserving that thing during their move.
Saturday and Sunday he's off work and Rachel and Santana take him shopping Saturday where he spends way too much and he's sure Sebastian is going to open up their shared account later and pass out at the amount of retail therapy Kurt packed into seven hours at the mall. He locks himself in the bathroom and cries about spending so much money once they get home and he knows that Santana has just about reached her limit with him because she apparently has been waiting to take a shower for a date she has in an hour.
In return Kurt helps her pick an outfit for her date so she forgives him. Sunday is a different story though. Kurt remembers how when they moved in together they picked Sunday nights to continue Kurt's mother's Friday night dinner traditions. Sunday night is dinner together because even though they cook together a lot during the week they mostly eat it while sitting on the counter or the couch and talking about little things.
Sunday they can actually sit down and talk about their weeks and how they can improve at work and with each other, they can plan their week out, decide which days they're going to cook and what they're going to cook, they can make a grocery list and they go after the dishes are washed and put away.
This Sunday Santana decides is going to be the end of the madness. She picks up her phone while Kurt is wrapped in that now stained t-shirt of Sebastian's and calls him while she's in the bathroom getting ready for her shift at the diner.
Sebastian answers her on the fourth ring, he hasn't answered any of Kurt's calls since he tried Friday night. Before he can even talk Santana is spewing orders, "You are going to come get your mess off this couch before he throws up on himself from crying too much. He's been wearing the same shirt since Thursday night and it doesn't smell like you anymore and it's covered in eye water juice and snot. I've never seen him in such a pathetic state and I'm sick of it. He was supposed to be the strong one when Rachel and I cried and now I'm having to deal with him and it's freaking me out. If you're still mad about him saying something about your great grandmother you need to reconsider marriage. It happens man, he's apparently sorry about it because he apologizes in his fucking sleep. How am I supposed to be beautiful if he can't even shut up when he's in rem sleep?"
Sebastian is quiet for a minute waiting for Santana to say anything else but she doesn't.
"You can't just talk about people's dead grandmother's like that." He argues.
"Sure you can, pumpkin." She answers, "How many years did we talk about Kurt's mom before we realized that she was dead and he never said anything? You guys need to sit down and talk about your issues and it needs to be at your house and not in my apartment because as much as I love him I cannot deal with this until you decide to get over being mad about something stupid he said. Forgive and forget isn't that the rule of marriage? You two are bigger than this, Sebastian. If you don't come get him I'll put him out on the street and he won't have anywhere to go."
"Don't do that!" Sebastian yells, "I'm not letting him sleep on the streets."
"So then you can come get him because obviously you're over it enough to be worried about him not having a couch to sleep on." She shrugs at herself in the mirror, "If he's not out of the house by the end of my shift tonight at 11 I'm putting him out."
Sebastian hangs up on her but an hour later Rachel is opening the door to the man leaning against the frame. She raises an eyebrow and glances behind her at Kurt watching cartoons blankly flash across the screen and then back at Sebastian who is watching his husband and shaking his head, "I've come to collect my brat." He says.
"Are you ready to talk about your issues with him? You guys have a lot to discuss." She says carefully.
"You're right we do." Sebastian agrees, "And we're going to do a lot of talking but I'm not going to abuse him and I know he's not going to do anything but cry so I think we're fine." He moved passed her and towards Kurt's room without his husband even noticing. Sebastian knew Kurt was out of it if he doesn't even break his blank stare to notice someone else in the apartment.
He throws Kurt's clothes in the duffel bag, stuffs as much of the new shit he's bought in there too and carries the rest of it out where he sets it down next to Kurt's keys. Kurt is still watching the TV flash when Sebastian sits down sideways beside him and runs his fingers through his fallen hair. He really is a mess.
"I love you." Sebastian says when Kurt leans into him and closes his eyes. The t-shirt he's wearing smells awful and Sebastian feels bad that this is what his husband has reduced himself down to but he's thankful that in this moment Kurt is pliable enough to listen and soak in everything. He isn't going to start their talk until they get home and maybe eat something but his favorite Kurt is the one that is a little sad and clingy and takes in everything he's told like it's a life line.
"I love you too." Kurt says as Sebastian kisses his temple.
"Good." Sebastian smiles a little, "I'd hate for you to think that I didn't. Come on we're going home, okay?"
Kurt nods and lets Sebastian pull him up and collect his bags and the keys. He took the subway down here but he doesn't trust Kurt to drive right now so he climbs into the driver's side after settling Kurt in the passenger side and raises an eyebrow as he backs out of the parking space.
"Wanna fuck?" he asks and Kurt smiles for the first time all weekend.